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On our second day in Barcelona, fueled by café con leche and enough jamon to kill a horse, we excitedly settled into a breakneck tour of modern Catalan design and architecture. From Gaudi and Dali to Mariscal and Alvarez, our Barcelona education continues in earnest.

I'm just back from Paris, and still processing all the exciting new furnishings, accessories, and objets I spied at Maison & Objet over the weekend. In case you missed my first dispatch, check it out here. Let's continue the virtual tour, with highlights from Ligne Roset, HAY, Donna Wilson, and SCP...

When the plane's wheels touched ground this morning at 7am, it was still dark in Barcelona. We, a motley crew of design-website editors, had just spent a long eight hours flying over the Atlantic with—horrors!—no wifi. Even though the sun was just rising as we sped away from the airport, we resisted the siren song of hotel beds and Internet clicking, and immediately embarked upon a rousing tour of Catalan architecture, art and design.

Zach Kaplan is looking out for the little guys. In 2002, he launched Inventables, an extensive library of high-tech materials from manufacturers and innovators like Dupont and 3Form. The initial price tag on a subscription to the database—$70,000-$350,000—limited access to everyone but Fortune 500 companies, Kaplan says. So in 2010, inspired by the upsurge in DIYism and maker culture, he tossed out the sky-high membership rates and tossed all the information and products online—for free. "We wanted to democratize access to all this interesting research we've done over the last eight years," Kaplan says. The result is a prototyping designer's dream: an inventors hardware store where small quantities of samples can be purchased with the click of the button and the cash in your wallet (many materials costs less then $20). "When you're a really big company, suppliers will bend over backwards to do whatever you want them to do but if you're a small company it's see you later," Kaplan says. "Designers, artists, inventors, students—we think of them as little R&Ds. They have all the passion, energy, and drive. We want to get these materials into their hands." Click through our slideshow for 14 materials available on Inventables.com that have Kaplan's juices flowing—from rubber glass to translucent concrete.

YLighting recently alerted us to the new energy-efficient lighting designs they're carrying online. The market for energy-efficient lights is currently booming (and is estimated to grow 35% per year through 2012), so with their slate of new Light Emitting Diode (LED) and fluorescent lamps, they're onto something.

When David Alhadeff opened The Future Perfect in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2003, he made it his mission to showcase new and fresh design. Seven years and three retail outposts later, he’s still on the beat, championing undiscovered talent alongside now-established designers, some of whom, like Jason Miller and Lindsey Adelman, he’s fostered since the shop’s inception. “I’m always looking for what you haven’t seen before,” he says.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2002 with a degree in furniture design, Jonah Takagi traveled the world for four years with indie-rock musician Benjy Ferree. When he had time at home in Washington, DC, he picked up side gigs crafting sets and props and tinkered with product one-offs at the studio in his house.